An entertainment blog that was started in 2006, ignored from 2009 to 2011 due to work commitments & the advent of social media. Is back on line as of Jan. 22, 2012.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

And now...the second best part of the Super Bowl

For once, the Super Bowl commercials were not the best part of the game. That was the aforementioned half time show with Prince. The second best part, in my opinion, was the game itself. Coming a distant third was the commercials. Living in Canada, we missed most of the good ones. However, living in the internet age, we in Canada can see all of these commercials on-line after the fact. Having scanned through most of them on youtube, nothing really stood out to me.

There are lots of lists about the best Super Bowl commercials of all time. There is that Apple computer one from 1984 that ripped off George Orwell's novel and that coke commercial featuring the Osbornes and the Osmonds. However, my choice would be the series of Whassup ads for Budweiser. Look, I know saying "whassup" to people is now passe. It is in some pop culture purgatory due to overexposure like the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody because of overexposure due to the Wayne's World film.

The original Budweiser whassup ads still make me laugh. They were based on a short film by director Charles Stone III entitled True which featured him and his friends talking on the phone and saying "whassup" to each other. Stone has since gone on to direct films such as Drumline (pretty good) and Mr. 3000 (very bad). The whassup ads have developed a life on their own, being spoofed in films such as Scary Movie, computer geeks have created their own whassup ads featuring the same audio but using characters from Super Friends and Star Wars among others and there have been Scottish versions, New Jersey versions and senior citizen versions. People are now just sick of the concept. Please, here are the original five. Sit back and enjoy what was a very funny original concept that ended up being basterdized later.